Heart Shaped Chocolate Boxes: The Symbol of Valentine’s Day

Few social scripts are as clear as Valentine’s Day: If you love someone, if it’s February 14, you buy them chocolate. And while you can buy them any chocolate, nothing says Valentine’s Day as loudly and clearly as a row of chocolate candies in a festive heart-shaped box. The heart-shaped box eliminates the possibility of ambiguity: these aren’t just ordinary chocolates; these are the chocolates of romantic love.

Regardless of the cost, the basic premise of a heart-shaped box of chocolates is always much the same. It’s a box. Inside, there are chocolates. The box is heart-shaped. Usually, the heart-shaped box is made of cardboard and is red, but sometimes it’s pink or purple or all three, with gold accents.

Red Heart Shape Chocolate Box with Ribbon

Sometimes it is tied with a real ribbon, or – more cheaply – a picture of a ribbon. The content also varies, with a narrow range. In its most classic form, the heart-shaped box contains a variety of individual chocolates, presumably because they would be prettier if they were different from each other and because variety helps keep the excitement of love alive.

It’s a logical pairing. Hearts are associated with romantic love. Chocolates are associated with romantic love. Chocolates need boxes, and the boxes have to be shaped like something.

Love is a heart-shaped box

The iconic box of Valentine’s Day chocolates is shaped like a heart because hearts are for love.

By the early 15th century, the heart had taken on the shape and meaning we know today as Hallmark recognized – just in time for medical advances, Time magazine notes. The heart was no longer understood as a thumping notebook, a pulsating sensory record, and the brain became the body’s governing organ.

The heart shape retained its iconic status — love! — even as medical science gave way to centuries of sensual objects shaped like the heart but not the brain. Necklaces. Valentine’s Day. Pizza pies. Boxes.

Valentine’s Day Heart Shape Gift Box for Chocolates

The boxes predate chocolate, says Nancy Rosin, president of the National Valentine’s Day Collectors Association. There are engagement pendants and heart-shaped boxes for storing. Heart-shaped porcelain boxes. There are even antique valentines that, while not boxes, do technically often require some sort of box-like interaction where the recipient peels back the layers, unfolds the fold, and pulls the tab to reveal a secret message or picture hidden in the heart.

So chocolates are romantic. Heart-shaped boxes were romantic. By the 1840s, Valentine’s Day had become a must-celebrate commercial holiday, both to express love and to give gifts.

“The heart is the center of emotion and love,” Rosin mused. “You open it, and it’s your secret, your dreams – your fantasies are in this box of chocolates.” According to sales figures, they still are. Last year, Adweek reported that “according to a recent statistic, 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolates enter the hands of our lovers each year.”

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